Extensive measurement in social choice

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Nebel, Jacob M.
• 署名单位: Princeton University
• 刊物名称: THEORETICAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1933-6837
• DOI: 10.3982/TE5738
• 发表日期: 2024-11-01
• 页码: 1581-1618
• 关键词: Social welfare functions; measurement theory; classical utilitarianism; variable-population ethics; Arrow's impossibility theorem

摘要

Extensive measurement is the standard measurement-theoretic approach for constructing a ratio scale. It involves the comparison of objects that can be concatenated in an additively representable way. This paper studies the implications of extensively measurable welfare for social choice theory. We do this in two frameworks: an Arrovian framework with a fixed population and no interpersonal comparisons, and a generalized framework with variable populations and full interpersonal comparability. In each framework we use extensive measurement to introduce novel domain restrictions, independence conditions, and constraints on social evaluation. We prove a welfarism theorem for these domains and characterize the social welfare functions that satisfy the axioms of extensive measurement at both individual and social levels. The main results are simple axiomatizations of strong dictatorship in the Arrovian framework and classical utilitarianism in the generalized framework.